Lot 104: Michalis Economou (Greek 1888-1933)

House by the sea
signed 'M. Economou' (lower left)
oil on flannel laid down on cardboard
49 x 61 cm. (19 1/4 x 24 in.)

Provenance:
Private collection, Athens

Literature:
Afrodite Kouria, M. Economou, Adam publications, Athens 2001, no. 122, p. 173 (illustrated)

Landscapes were Economou's cherished theme. The present picture, with its ethereal light and monochromatic colours, is characteristic of his oeuvre. With its delicately nuanced hues, the work is infused with a sense of timelessness.
Economou left for Paris in 1906 to study shipbuilding but soon turned his attention to art and attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts from 1909 to 1913. He remained in France for 20 years, coming into contact with all the avant-garde theories of colour and composition prevalent at the time. Although the influence of the Barbizon painters can be detected in his early works, as his style evolved, he borrowed elements from Cezanne and Denis that he translated into a uniquely personal idiom. Volumes lose their substance and figures, when they appear, are solitary and faceless, emerging momentarily from a doorway, before disappearing again.
Responding emotionally to the natural environment, Economou depicted his sensations of its different moods through a restrained use of colour in an attempt to extract what art critic D. Kokkinos described in 1931 as the "dramatic elements" of the landscape unfolding before him.